Here's my entry!
So, with the clothes that the Old Woman Wise had knit for them, Deer and Snake passed unnoticed through the lands of Man, looking no less Man-like than Man himself.
They came at last to the Misty Mountains Low, where the Ancient Blind Dragon lived among the deep and winding canyons.
They walked slowly, through the mists, afraid of finding by accident where narrow path ended and the sky between the walls began. They walked for hours and hours, until three times the sun had danced his fiery dance overhead and the moon had glided away in her graceful flight.
Snake grew frustrated as their search for the Ancient Blind Dragon proved again and again to be fruitless, every stone outcropping amongst the mist seeming to be his great face, but always just their desperate eyes seeing what they desired most.
“Deer,” he said at last, sitting himself down on the old roots of a dead tree “For three days we have searched and found nothing. Let us stop here and rest while we think that the Old Woman Wise might have lied to us.”
Deer, in her Man-form stayed standing.
“Snake. How can you say this? Do you give up on our home and the cure we search for? Will you, you who has traveled so far, go no further?”
He shook his head “I did not say give up, merely, let us consider if we have any other options. Perhaps Old Woman Wise forgot who really gave her the cure for Darkness in Earth. Maybe we must go back into the Lands Of Man.”
Deer was going to answer him sharply, but before as her mouth opened, a great rush of air sent the mists around them spinning into confusion and a great head rose up from the stones, a gray mane drifting behind it.
Both Deer and Snake had no words as the mighty creature slowly dipped down towards them.
The huge eyes set into its long face had no pupils and where as white as fresh milk. Yet though they were sightless, Deer and Snake both felt as if the deepest gaze was piercing into the very center of them.
“Voices of Man. Steps of Man. Yet… not man,” the Dragon spoke softly, with a voice as deep as the sea, and sent the stones at their feet trembling “Speak, Voices of Man that do not belong to Man. Why do you come so deep into my mountains wearing clothes that do not belong to you?”
Shaking, Deer stepped forwards “We are creatures of the green forest tall growing on the mighty mountain blue as the sky. Our home is sick with Darkness in Earth and we have come over the plains where wyrm dragons dwell, through the willowwacks where even the trees lie and into the Land of Man in search of a cure.”
“Darkness in Earth? I have not heard of that malady for an age now,” the Ancient Blind Dragon nodded slowly “It is not a sickness that can be cured easily.”
“We will do anything to cure our home,” Deer replied bravely. For after dragons and lying trees it seemed there was little she could not face.
“Indeed? What of your friend who does not speak?”
Snake scrambled to his feet, his eyes wide and his mouth stuttering out a promise.
“I-I will do anything.”
“Good. Good. For I believe you, that your home is sick. I will give you the cure. But you must swear to only apply it to the sick places in your home.”
Deer bowed her head “I swear.”
“I as well,” Snake added quickly, bowing his head as well.
“Then I will fetch the cure for you. Stay here.”
And through the billowing clouds, he disappeared.
They waited, breath held against their lips and eyes still wide from the shock of the size of the Ancient Blind Dragon.
They waited so long that Snake began to wonder if the great beast had only existed in their minds and the cloud smoke that swirled in traceless dances around them.
But he did not need to wonder long, for the Blind Dragon soon appeared again, a tiny smudge of green caught between his teeth.
He came right to the edge of their path and the smudge of green fell from his mouth, landing gently at Deer’s feet as a bush.
“Plant the flowers from this bush wherever Darkness in Earth has spread.”
Carefully, Deer picked the plant up and cradled it in her arms.
“Thank you, Ancient Blind Dragon. We of the green forest tall growing on the mighty mountain as blue as the sky thank you.”
“I accept your thanks,” rumbled the Blind Dragon in reply “Now with hasty steps return to your home before it is too late.”
